MLB Betting Preview: Toronto Blue Jays at Baltimore Orioles

Added on Sep 13, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

With a big weekend of football action in the books (notwithstanding tonight’s pair of NFL games) we’ll take a look at some baseball betting opportunities for Monday starting with an American League East game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles. The Blue Jays are in the same boat as the Boston Red Sox–they’ve had a relatively decent season but are in the same division with the two best teams in baseball (at least based on record). That means that despite being above .500 they’re essentially out of the playoff picture. Baltimore has been ‘out of the playoff picture’ for most of the season, but have started to show a pulse under new manager Buck Showalter. At the very least, they’re no longer the worst team in baseball.

Toronto Blue Jays (Rzepczynski) at Baltimore Orioles (Matusz)
September 13, 2010–4:05 PM Pacific

This is something of a strange game, and not just because of what is likely a MLB record for most ‘Z’s’ in the last names of a starting pitcher matchup. For one thing, the Baltimore Orioles are favored here. They’ve been home favorites roughly 15 times this year, and most of those were against other teams with losing records. Making it even stranger, the Blue Jays have dominated the Orioles this year with a 12-0 record including 6-0 in the ‘Charm City’. Today’s starter for Baltimore, Brian Matusz, has two career starts against Toronto and he didn’t make it out of the third inning in either one. He gave up 11 earned runs in those two outings, meaning that his career ERA against the Blue Jays is an almost comical 22.81. In all fairness, he’s only faced them twice and Matusz is just 23 years old so he’s got plenty of time to improve upon that mark.

And here’s the strangest thing of all–we think Baltimore is the play here. The Orioles haven’t played Toronto since July 28–two days before Buck Showalter was hired. Since Buck took the gig, Baltimore is 23-14. I’m not sure what the MLB rules are regarding the ‘Manager of the Year’ award, but taking over the worst team in the majors and immediately getting them to play .621 baseball is a pretty impressive piece of work. Baltimore enters this game having won six of their last eight and they didn’t exactly beat pushovers during this run–the six wins are comprised of taking two of three at home against Tampa Bay, 2 of 3 at Detroit and 2 of 3 against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Those three teams have combined for 245 wins this season and Tampa and the Yankees are in a heated battle for the division crown.

Brian Matusz has been pitching very well of late, allowing a total of 6 earned runs in his last three starts for a tidy 2.84 ERA in that stretch–more impressive is the fact that he did this against the Red Sox at home and the Yankees and White Sox on the road and Baltimore won all three games. In other words, his L3 ERA is roughly 20 runs better than his career ERA against Toronto. Marc Rzepczynski has a YTD ERA of 6.47 and the Jays have lost 6 of his 8 road starts. Most significant to this matchup, however, is Toronto’s struggles against left handers. Blue Jays are 11-19 against southpaws for -6.6 units, and they average only 3.5 runs per game against lefties–1.2 fewer than their overall RPG average.

Oddly enough, the Blue Jays 12-0 record season to date may actually work against them here–Showalter obviously hasn’t had much trouble motivating his team, but he’ll have no problem getting their focus to play a team that has beaten them in every matchup this year. And with Toronto struggling against LHP, Matusz could be in for a strong outing as well. Baltimore is a different team under Showalter, and we’ll back them to get the win here.

Bet Baltimore Orioles (Matusz) -125 over Toronto Blue Jays (Rzepczynski)